From the thread “A creature of its own making?” on GOAL (Global Open Access List).

Jean-Claude Guédon: “Alicia Wise always speaks with a forked tongue! I wonder how much she is paid to practise this dubious art?”

Richard Poynder: “I am not aware that Alicia Wise has ever been anything other than polite to members of this list. It does not show open access in a good light that every time she posts to the list her comments generate the kind of response we see below.”

I wonder what is going on here? Why are we getting lessons in etiquette on GOAL rather than discussing OA matters of substance?

Yes, Alicia is paid to keep on talking Elsevier double-talk. Yes, she does it politely. That’s not the point. The point is that it is double-talk:

Alicia Wise: “All our authors… have both gold and green Open Access publishing options.”

What that means is:

You may either (1) pay
(always over and above what you pay for subscriptions overall, always heavily, and sometimes even doubly)
for (gold) OA
or else you may (2) wait
(for twelve or more months*)
for (green) OA.

That is indeed fork-tongued double-talk*: Say what sounds like one thing but mean another, and say it politely. (Why rile the ones you are duping?)

*Actually, it’s double-double-talk, and, as pointed out many times before, if Elsevier authors were sensible they would realize that they can provide immediate, unembargoed green OA if they wish, ignoring Elsevier’s never-ending attempts at updating their pseudo-legal double-talk to sound both permissive and prohibitive at the same time.

So, yes, Richard is right — and others (including myself: google ?harnad pogo?) have already said it time and time again in this self-same Forum — that Elsevier is not the only one to blame. There are the dupers (Elsevier) and the duped (universities and their researchers). We all know that.

But it is not a co-conspiracy — much as conspiratorial thinking comes in handy at lean times when there is nothing new to talk about.

So although the dupees have themselves to blame for allowing themselves to be duped, that does not put them on the same plane of culpability as the dupers. After all, it is the dupers who gain from the duping, and the dupees who lose, whether or not they have themselves to blame for falling for it.

Blaming the victim, as Richard does, below, also has a long pedigree in this Forum, but I will not rebut it again in detail. The short answer is that adopting effective Green OA mandates (rather than vilifying the victims for their foolishness) is the remedy for all the damage the victims have unwittingly allowed to be done them for so long.

And stop fussing about metrics. They too will sort themselves out completely once we have universally mandated (and provided) green OA.

Richard Poynder: “What Jean-Claude?s criticism of large publishers like Elsevier and Wiley omits is the role that the research community has played in their rise to power, a role that it continues to play. In fact, not only has the research community been complicit [emphasis added] in the rise and rise [sic] of the publishing oligarchy that Jean-Claude so deprecates, but one could argue that it created it ? i.e. this oligarchy is a creature of its own making.
    ”After all, it is the research community that funds these publishers, it is the research community that submits papers to these publishers (and signs over copyright in the process), and it is the research community that continues to venerate the brands (essentially a product of the impact factor) that allow these publishers to earn the high profits that Jean-Claude decries.
    ”And by now seeking to flip this oligarchy?s journals to OA the research community appears to be intent on perpetuating its power (and doubtless profits).
    ”One might therefore want to suggest that Jean-Claude?s animus is misdirected. [emphasis added]”

And so are Richard’s reproaches…

Your increasingly bored archivangelist,

Stevan Harnad

Rick Anderson: “Stevan, is it really true that any institution can join the EOS? According to the webpage, membership is “available to approved institutions” (emphasis mine). I assume that EOS itself does the approving — is that correct? And if so, that means that it’s not really true that “any institution can join,” is it?”

Ok. You caught me, Rick! I guess I’ll have to ‘fess up now: EOS is a secret organization whose true goals I am not at liberty to divulge. The approval of the approved institutions (just a small subset of the many who have applied for approval across the years) is done by an invisible college whose identities are all classified, along with the identities of the institutions and the true goal of the organization, but if you make a formal FOI request it might be possible to provide you with an edited transcript of the list (with identities coded for confidentiality).

Rick Anderson: “Stevan, Is it really true that the EOS is “public”? I don’t see any list of its members anywhere on the site. (If I’m missing it, please do provide a link.) I would assume that an organization that is “public” (as distinct from a “secret society,” the term at which you took such umbrage) would at the very least make its institutional membership a matter of public record, wouldn’t it?”

You’re right again, Rick. EOS is indeed not public: It is a secret society whose true purposes (which have no relation to what it says on the website) I am not free to reveal.

Rick Anderson: “And does the EOS really make all of its documents public? On the site I see a small list of briefing papers — are those the only documents the organization has produced? No minutes, no agendas, no other documents that would normally characterize the work of an organization committed to transparency and public openness?”

I’m truly embarrassed now, Rick. Fact is, you’ve got me again! The documents on the website have nothing to do with the true objectives and activities of EOS. We do have minutes and agendas, but those are all confidential (especially our true goals) as we are in fact not committed to transparency and public openness — or, for that matter, to openness of any kind.

[Please get out the clippers. Many quotes here suitable for clipping and using in the context of your choice, Rick!]

Rick Anderson: “To be clear, the EOS is under no more obligation to be public and transparent in its work than any other organization is — this isn’t about legal or ethical obligation. It’s just about commitment to principles of openness and transparency.”

You’re quite right Rick, and I’m really grateful to you (and to Richard too) for giving me this opportunity to unburden my conscience, which has been weighed down for years with remorse about all the play-acting we’ve been doing. Indeed Yuletide is almost the optimal moment for at last coming clean about this shabby business. (I can think of only one early spring date that might have been even better.)

Congratulations on your successful sleuthing! You have both (and of course the intrepid PMR too!) performed an invaluable service to the academic community and the public at large for unmasking this sordid affair. Please do keep up the courageous and insightful work in the service of openness, transparency and verity. In the world we live in today, one can’t be too careful.

“Stevan Harnad”

Instalment #2 (2015/12/28)

Yule-Foolery

Despite the season, I am beginning to take a less jolly view of this exchange than Bernard Rentier does (if only because I have been less successful in my planned holiday catch-up than I had hoped, which makes the diminishing returns from this sort of dawdling increasingly diminutive).

In particular, although the suspicions about EOS were silly from the get-go — they didn’t even have the elementary support of a putative motive that even amateur detective novels know they need in order to generate suspicion — they seem now to have sunk into abject absurdity. Levity is clearly unavailing to restore common sense, so let me provide a motive (in fact three) — not for the suspected lack-of-transparency on the part of the suspects, but for the suspiciousness on the part of the sleuths:

(1) For PMR the motive is an inordinate fondness for open data, even if it is at odds with OA — a motive EOS clearly does not share.

(2) For RA the motive is unfondness of OA itself, which EOS again clearly cannot share (I won’t venture an ulterior motive for RA’s unfondness).

(3) For RP the motive is seasonal shortage of substance.

So let me propose three topics of substance, any of which would make a jolly basis for seasonal discussion in “Open and Shut”:

I. Can anyone provide a substantive link between the need for open access to published, peer-reviewed research and the need for peer review reform?

II. Can anyone provide a substantive link between the need for open access to published, peer-reviewed research and the need for academic freedom?

III. Can anyone provide a substantive link between the need for open access to published, peer-reviewed research and the need for freedom of information?

(And can anyone still remember what the words “access to research” meant before they somehow got conflated with re-use rights or with “transparency”?)

I’ve been on this ride a long time now but I can’t help noting that as we get exercised over all these other worthy matters, we are still rather far from having open access to published, peer-reviewed research…